A digital download kiosk enables a customer to select, pay for, and then download multi-media content (such as a movie, an audio file, or a video game) to a portable storage device (such as a non-volatile memory card). Once the multi-media content has been downloaded, the portable storage device can be inserted into a suitable reader coupled to a playback device (such as a computer or a television) to allow the customer to view the downloaded multi-media content either indefinitely (if the customer bought the content) or for a limited time period (if the customer rented the content).
Multi-media content is protected by digital rights management (DRM) protection techniques to prevent unauthorized copying thereof.
One popular type of multi-media content available at a kiosk is a movie (sometimes referred to as a cinematographic film, or a motion picture). Each movie file is comparatively large (typically at least two Gigabytes per movie for standard resolution, and much more for high resolution).
Customers like to be able to choose from a large range of movies when using a digital download kiosk. This means that it is desirable to be able to access a large catalogue of movies (and potentially other multi-media content). It is not currently practical to store a large number of different movies in a kiosk, so digital download kiosks are typically connected to a content server, which is typically co-located in the same retail outlet as the digital download kiosk. The content server is typically connected by a high bandwidth communications channel (such as T1 or ADSL connection) to a remote authorization database to receive updated movies therefrom. Movies can then be transferred from the content server to the kiosk in response to a customer's selection.
This arrangement has the disadvantage that the kiosk owner or operator has to pay for expensive, high bandwidth, communication lines between the content server and the remote authorization database. If a large number of new movies are released at the same time, then it is not practical to update the content server using the high bandwidth communications channel. Instead, a service engineer is usually dispatched to the retail location housing the kiosk, with a disk drive containing the updated content. The service engineer transfers the updated content to the content server using the disk drive. This is costly, time-consuming, and can lead to failures because of damage to the electro-mechanical components within the disk drive.